Fourth Annual MAPS on View in Aomori

The Fourth Annual MAPS Exhibit has received a wonderful reception at the Munakata Shiko Memorial Museum of Art in Aomori, Japan! We will be posting updates on the Fourth annual MAPS Exchange as they come, so stay tuned. There are many exciting things happening here at Friends and we can not wait to share them with you!

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Thank you to our partner Ono-san at the Munakata Museum for this annotated translation of the Newspaper Article shown above:

① Headline: Prints-Exchange Exhibition between Maine and Aomori is to be held this year, too.

② Sub-headline: To be displayed at the venue of Aomori Citizens’ Culture Festival

③ As a part of the Print-Exchange Project between Maine and Aomori, 10 prints by 10 artists in Maine reached the Munakata Museum, in charge of the project in Aomori.

④ The Print-Exchange Project started in 2015 and this year is the 4th. These prints are black-and-white and multi-colored ones. In particular, “Malaga Girl” is accurately carved in detail and precisely expresses cloth-quality as well. And the “Bird” carved in full-frame in size draws attentions of its beautiful grain of wood in print.

⑤ Mr. Ono, Director of the Museum, also makes his efforts in translation of the titles into better Japanese interpretation so as the visitors to understand the Maine artists’ intentions.

⑥ Mrs. Kudo, aged 71, a member of the Board of Trustee and a coterie member of the Japan Woodblock Academy founded by Shiko Munakata, evaluated the prints highly and make her comments, “All the prints are excellent in conveying the strong intentions of 10 artisits, respectively, and each one’s earnest pursuit of techniques in woodblock print.”

⑦ In the exchange project, the prints by elementary-school pupils are exhibited every year and in November a woman teacher from Maine is coming to Aomori under the sponsorship of Aomori Morning Rotary Club. She is expected to promote the printing education in Maine after her visit to the two schools in Aomori and her observation of the print-work classes as well.

⑧ The two, Director Ono(left) and Mrs. Kudo(right), are in the examination of the prints from Maine for the 2018 Exhibition.